Lovers' Night
by macDhai
Summary: A belated Valentine's Day story set in my Rogue Magick storyline.


**Lovers' Eve (Valentine's Day)**

By Rillan macDhai

Occurring sometime between leaving Westfall and facing Firesworn's nemesis, I'm not sure this makes a lot of sense if you haven't been reading "Rogue Magick" and its related stories, but I thought I'd share it anyway. A few bad words and mention of sex, nothing explict; my warning to keep the site managers happy.

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**The Ghostlands, Quel'thalas, near the Andillien Estate**

"I miss you . . . "

The words were a whisper in the darkness of the Ghostlands, but I heard them anyway.

Within me, another heard them as well.

_Firesworn!_ A catch of not-breath from the other, a flare of pain ruthlessly suppressed. _On this night of all nights, don't leave him alone, Adreain_.

I couldn't help it, I hissed at the use of that name, even though I understood what drove him to use it. I had ghosts of my own, less corporeal, but still bound and entangled with that name I never use.

Forcing my anger down, I bit out, _As if I would, Talindor!_ And shouldered past him in that metaphorical room we shared.

888

Firesworn was sitting on the bank of a pond, knees drawn up to his chest, leaning forward against them with arms and elbows locking his lean frame into a boney package, a child's huddling against the dark. For all he was older than me, it reminded me he was still so very vulnerable, still an orphan as I was, though for far colder reasons.

A candle burned and a bottle and two shots of some dark liquid sat next to an open box of chocolates, casting back the light from their exquisite cut-glass like the windows of the Cathedral.

"I didn't mean to fall in love," he said suddenly, conversationally. "I didn't think I could. I thought it would be betraying everything we are… were …

"_Are_," he finally decided upon, continuing, "You're gone, truly gone, but all I share with you, it still lives. As long as I live, as long as I remember, you are still with me in that much." He sighed. "I wanted to join you, to walk or fight my way back into the Citadel, to die on my own blade if that was the only way I could be with you. Yet, you'd forbidden it.

"And I couldn't break that, no matter how I raged against it, until that compulsion was gone. And once it was gone, there was no reason to go there anymore, was there?"

He lifted one of the shots in silent toast to the sky or the water, or the spirit he spoke to, and slammed it back in one quick swallow.

"And then there's Nightfrost."

He seemed to consider that, unaware how close I stood, frozen from the moment he'd begun speaking. "He anchors me, you know? Not in a bad way; he keeps me sane. Loves me. Loves me in that same terrible, self-destructive way I love you, I think. And I love him. Long before we ever had sex, or even kissed, I knew I cared for him, that part of me was his even if we never touched again."

He sighed again. "But he isn't you and I still grieve, Talindor. Is this the way it should be?" He leaned back, looking up at the stars now and I could see them reflected in the tear tracks on his narrow, handsome face. "Even when he's fucked me senseless, I'll wake and reach for you. It isn't fair to him. Or to Richelle."

He poured himself another shot of alcohol, inspected the second shot glass as though he expected the level there to have gone down. "Not drinking tonight?" he asked. "Don't worry, I'll handle that end."

It was then I realized how very drunk he was, this man who could savor a single brandy all night and pour half of it back into his private flask come the morning. When his soliloquy would have me discreetly withdraw as I had come, despite Tal's plea, the knowledge Firesworn could easily stand up and fall into the pond - if he _could_ stand up and not just roll down into the water - and drown purely by accident, if not design, kept me there.

"Are you going to just stand there all evening or come and join me?" he asked over his shoulder, turning my way with an unnerving accuracy. "I know you're there," he added, "I can feel you, even if I can't see you. I've given you a lot to chew on, haven't I?"

He shifted, stretching out his legs, half-turned to watch the darkness where I stood. He sipped from the shot glass he'd picked up. "Please? Can't you come back even for tonight?"

_How did you know I was here?_ I had almost started to ask him, when his words made it clear it was Talindor he'd detected or thought he detected. Tal made a softly wordless cry of pain and that was finally too much for me.

Another ghost walked out of the shadows beside me as I joined Firesworn by the tiny flame of the candle. There are minor ley lines all over the Ghostlands and Talindor's skills let me tap them to power an illusion that could embody the spirit bound to me.

"I should have brought more glasses," the drunken fire mage said brightly when he saw us, his eyes glowing very green as he stood up with more grace than I would have thought possible. He tilted his head sideways, studying us in his dear, familiar way. "I must be very drunk and very maudlin for you to be doing this, Sky. I'd almost think you'd seen him, he looks so real. Perhaps I'm already dreaming?

"Talindor?" he asked before I could reply, his eyes sliding off me to try focusing on the tall male beside me, uncertainty in his voice. "Forgive me?"

"There's nothing to forgive, my fire-sworn mage." Tal's voice was a thready whisper - sound harder to create than image - and the glare he gave me was a promise I wasn't included in that forgiveness.

Firesworn shivered, eyes closing for a moment. "Oh, Tal…

"I wasn't there!" he raged suddenly, unexpected by both Tal and me. "You died again and I still wasn't there to stand with you!" He reached out to caress Tal's face, frowning when his fingers brushed only air. "Or to set you free."

There was a depth of pain and madness in his voice that terrified me, while my own pain echoed in response. I knew that world-ending grief, capable of destroying everything around it; and he knew how to channel it. The candle flared up, the flame growing to the size of my fist, lingering even as the wax melted away and the temperature around us increased all out of proportion with amount of heat it could have produced.

"This was the only price that could secure my freedom," Tal said, gesturing at his transparency, forcing his voice louder, firmer. "Firesworn, do _not_ burn the forest! Or Nightfrost! However much they might need it. "

"You can't command me anymore," Firesworn said defiantly, confusing me as he referenced something I had no knowledge about. "Our link is broken."

Sorrow twisted his face, "Besides, you're just another drunken, guilt-induced hallucination anyway." With a flick of his eyes to me, he added, "Or a well-meant attempt to soothe me out of my destructive fit, instead of making it worse."

"I am not –" Talindor paused, but I could follow his thinking. Argue the point with Firesworn who was literally burning off the alcohol he'd consumed in what were now a dozen floating balls of flames, and have to explain his continued existence to a rapidly sobering elementalist or continue to hide and let his lover, our lover, grieve in this destructive way.

"Not this time, Brightblade," I decided and put my strength into keeping him there. "You've hidden long enough."

Both of them looked at me, really looked, and saw the rogue I was, the steel beneath the leather I wore or the illusions I could clumsily craft.

Firesworn, drunk as he was – or had been – recognized what I meant first. "You aren't just a projection," he said to Talindor. "Not a hallucination. Not a dream. Nor an undead, not quite anyway." He stroked Tal's face, touching him this time and even in his horror and fury at being revealed, Talindor leaned into his touch. "It really is you. How did this happen? How are you still here?"

"Nightfrost!" Tal admitted and accused, the San'layn's fury underlying my working name with subtle menace, but Firesworn's flames countered any chill his power might have generated. The glare he tossed me promised retribution to come.

"What did you do to him, Talindor?" The whipcrack of Firesworn's own anger was a split in the usual velvet of his voice, the mage's eyes still glowing green, his hair lifting in the warm breeze now circulating around us, centered on the angry warrior mage and his lover. And me.

"He kept him alive, when Varian Wrynn would have killed him," said Richelle, startling us all and adding a gold piece to the pot of our troubles as she joined us.

"Focus on burning out the alcohol, Firesworn," she added; ordered. "You're going to need a clear head for this. Sky? Can you continue to give that one" – she pointed at Talindor – "the semblance of a body?"

"He can if he lets me control the draw from the ley line, but not for long," Talindor replied, his voice back to a whisper almost lost in the crackle and snap of the floating fires our lover had called. The angry San'layn had exerted his own control upon himself, whatever revenge he had in mind for me postponed for now. "It would be easier on him for me to speak through our shared body than for us to maintain this simulacrum."

His eyes sought out Firesworn once again. Our mage was watching him with a hungry, haunted expression. Something passed between them, some nonverbal clue Fire recognized, for he nodded and said, "Always, beloved."

Tal inclined his head in turn and cut my connection to the ley line, seizing control of that part of our shared skills with a cold precision even as his image almost winked out like a snuffed candle. I know I sagged a little physically as I no longer had to brace myself against the unfamiliar power flows. Keeping him visible and partially embodied was easier now with him

_You mean well, but don't ever do that again. Neither of us gain if you die. Let me fade from sight for now._

"I will do what I have to do with all of the powers available to me, including yours," I told him out loud. And kept him visible.

"Contrary elfling," Talindor complained, but he continued helping me maintain his image.

"Contrary," Firesworn agreed. "Both of you. How much of my ramblings did you overhear?"

"Enough," whispered Tal.

"All of it," admitted Richelle. "I'd been watching you all evening."

"I'm really not as suicidal as all of you seem to think I am. Dying is too easy, but self-pity is a trap I'm prone to falling in. Getting drunk enough to light the woods on fire was probably my greatest danger, but it's not like Sear would let me burn."

As though conjured by his name, the elemental fire dog phased into view, wagging his stubby tail and barking joyously. Fire scratched him behind the ears and sank back down onto the ground in mute request we join them. The flame pup squirmed into his lap, the mage patting it absently as he did a minor fetching spell to bring his pack to him. "I think tea is in order," he said, busying himself with preparations. "Why didn't you tell me?"

The question hung between us for a moment.

"Because I am a fool," Tal admitted, sitting down beside him. "And I've had reason enough to know." He frowned at me, but his anger was either gone or, more likely, masked. "You and this one deserved a chance. Knowing I was here as well would have tainted anything between you. I think I managed, at least, not to ruin that up until now."

"What is between Sky Nightfrost and I is not something you need worry about, Talindor. Nor is Richelle Redshowers. I've never stopped loving you, as should be plain to everyone by now." He sighed, savoring the name, the presence, of the man next to him, some of the tention draining out of his expression. He balanced the tea kettle on top of the fire pup, his eyes now on me as I took a seat across from him and next to Talindor, my spirit brother, sometimes metaphysical lover, and, yes, evem mentor. Richelle filled in the gap between Firesworn and myself, completing a circle. And there was an almost audible click at that, as though something had indeed been completed at last. A warm breeze circled around us.

"Earth, air, fire, and water, bound by spirit, bound by love. Let those who would disturb our working here beware," said Firesworn almost as a chant.

"Now, who wants tea?"

888

What we spoke of next is the stuff of another story. For that night, we were united by love and affection and our enemies either didn't know where we were or wisely avoided us.


End file.
